A weapons engineer designs, develops, tests, and manages weapons and weapons systems for the federal government. They are employed by the military, the Department of Defense, or a private defense contractor to help ensure national security through weapons.
A weapons engineer may be a mechanical, electrical, nuclear, aerospace, or chemical engineer. Whatever type of engineer they may be, a weapons engineer needs to have substantial knowledge of weaponry, defense systems, and regulations regarding weapons.
If you think the career of a weapons engineer is your true calling, you would need to finish a degree in engineering, gain adequate work experience in your field, obtain weaponry knowledge, and prove proficiency in CAD software and problem-solving. Moreover, you would need to have exemplary skills in strategy, analysis, mathematics, time management, and communication, among many other soft skills.
The job of a weapons engineer is not easy. With that, they are compensated with a salary of over $100,000, averaging at $104,000 per year.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a weapons engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $40.18 an hour? That's $83,579 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 12,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many weapons engineers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed creativity, listening skills and math skills.
If you're interested in becoming a weapons engineer, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 72.7% of weapons engineers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 13.6% of weapons engineers have master's degrees. Even though most weapons engineers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a weapons engineer. In fact, many weapons engineer jobs require experience in a role such as mechanical engineer. Meanwhile, many weapons engineers also have previous career experience in roles such as systems engineer or project engineer.